Ursinus Normative Ethics Blog

Monday, October 30, 2006

my intuitions

This probably won't come out as much of an argument, but I do have some thoughts. What is the point of morality? If someone is immoral, so what? I think the reason that being immoral is a problem is because generally the things people see as immoral are things that they wouldn't themself do, or are things that their intuitions tell them are wrong. However, where do these intuitions come from? For the most part I'd say these intuitions are derived from ideas a person obtains from his or her family, friends, church, culture, etc. These intuitions are based upon ideals instilled upon them by 100s of people, and they are intuitions that for the most part are globally held. Say we lived in a world in which it was widely accepted that promises were allowed to be broken for no reason. Furthermore, let's say in a discussion of ethics we saw this practice as immoral. Thus, we consider all of society to be immoral in their handling of promises. So what? So all of society is immoral. What does that mean if no one notices or cares about it? Immorality in that case just becomes a word. It does not change people's minds about their practices, it does not make them bad people in the eyes of anyone else including themself. So why care if they are immoral? What's the point of morality? To me, when I consider my actions, I consider morality. I feel that morality is a force that tells people what we can and can't do. If I do something that is widely accepted as immoral, or something that maybe I on a more strict definition of morality see as wrong than I feel immoral, I feel like in that moment I am a bad person lacking in character and I work to avoid such actions in the future, and make any apologizes about my immoral actions that are needed. However, in the case of most of these options, intuitions of society say that while giving everything you can to starving people is highly admirable, it is not required. The whole of society outside of a select few agree with this thought. So say I become one of the select few. I live my life that way. I then place myself on a pedastal and have to agrue that everyone else in the world besides the select few are immoral. If I tell people that I don't think it will invoke the same feelings that I discussed earlier of when I engage in something the majority feels is immoral however. I feel that they will shrug it off arguing that it is ridiculous to expect that. I feel as though when someone goes and tells the majority of the world that they are immoral, the word immoral will lose all weight. Morality as a force becomes useless. If no matter what one does they are seen as immoral, why follow other rules of morality? If I'm already a terrible person, I might as well just act on that. Maybe intuitions aren't always right, and maybe morality shouldn't allow for options. However, I feel that if morality is truly seen in this way it will actually lose force for all of morality. It won't change how people act, it will only deter them from upholding other morals, and this to me, counters morality's purpose.

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